“Design is neither a profession nor a discipline; it is an acquired taste in synthesis. A good designer can, by virtue of design—the noun and the verb—not only solve problems but also seek them out, long before they emerge. Design, like language itself, conveys meaning through the creation of wholes that are bigger than the sum of their parts. And when a tight connection exists between method and form, technique and expression, process and product, one can enter the realm of the generative, where design transcends problem solving and becomes a system of thinking about making to attack any world problem.”
“We are a chosen planet in a way: there is water and there is love. What else do you need?”
Designing with Nature, Systems Thinking, Collaborative Creative Processes
Modes of Attention, Participatory Perception
“It’s helpful to view currents in the culture without feeling obligated to follow the direction of their flow. Instead, notice in the same connected, detached way you might notice a warm wind. Let yourself move within it, yet not be of it.”
“Regardless of whether or not we're formally making art, we are all living as artists. We perceive, filter, and collect data, then curate an experience for ourselves and others based on this information set. Whether we do this consciously or unconsciously, by the mere fact of being alive, we are active participants in the ongoing process of creation.”
“Because there's an endless amount of data available to us and we have a limited bandwidth to conserve, we might consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in.”
“How can we move past disconnection and desensitization to the incredible wonders of nature and human engineering all around us?
Most of what we see in the world holds the potential to inspire astonishment if looked at from a less jaded perspective. Train yourself to see the awe behind the obvious. Look at the world from this vantage point as often as possible. Submerge yourself.”
Participatory Perception, Connection & Disconnection, Sensitivity, Modes of Attention
Affordances of Digital Technology, Modes of Attention
“Certainly for artists of all stripes, the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale that has not yet arrived, is what must be found. It is the job of artists to open doors and invite in prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it’s where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own. Scientists too, as J. Robert Oppenheimer once remarked, “live always at the ‘edge of mystery’ — the boundary of the unknown.” But they transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out into that dark sea.”
“Previous technologies have expanded communication. But the last round may be contracting it. The eloquence of letters has turned into the nuanced sparseness of texts; the intimacy of phone conversations has turned into the missed signals of mobile phone chat. I think of that lost world, the way we lived before these new networking technologies, as having two poles: solitude and communion. The new chatter puts us somewhere in between, assuaging fears of being alone without risking real connection. It is a shallow between two deeper zones, a safe spot between the dangers of contact with ourselves, with others.”
Collaborative Creative Processes, Affordances of Digital Technology, Online Community, Placefulness
… Our Umwelt is still limited; it just doesn’t feel that way. To us, it feels all-encompassing. It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.
Nothing can sense everything, and nothing needs to. That is why Umwelten exist at all. It is also why the act of contemplating the Umwelt of another creature is so deeply human and so utterly profound. Our senses filter in what we need. We must choose to learn about the rest. …
It tells us that all is not as it seems and that everything we experience is but a filtered version of everything that we could experience. It reminds us that there is light in darkness, noise in silence, richness in nothingness. It hints at flicks of the unfamiliar in the familiar, of the extraordinary in the everyday, of magnificence in mundanity… When we pay attention to other animals, our own world expands and deepens.”
Participatory Perception, Interspecies Thinking
Humane Design, Online Community, Digital Identity, Gathering
But that era is coming to an end. Remem is merely the first of a new generation of memory prostheses, and as these products gain widespread adoption, we will be replacing our malleable organic memories with perfect digital archices. We will have a record of what we actually did instead of stories that evolve over repeated tellings. Within our minds, each of us will be transformed from an oral culture to a literate one.”
Affordances of Digital Technology, Digital Identity
“The artist creates a structure—whether that’s a map or a cordoned-off area (or even a lowly set of shelves!)—that holds open a contemplative space against the pressures of habit, familiarity, and distraction that constantly threaten to close it.”
“This is more than just an abstract understanding that our survival is threatened by global warming or even a cerebral appreciation for other living beings and systems. Instead this is an urgent, personal recognition that my emotional and physical survival are bound up with these “strangers,” not just now, but for life. … It’s a vital reminder that as a human, I am heir to this complexity—that I was born, not engineered. That’s why, when I worry about the estuary’s diversity, I am also worrying about my own diversity—about having the best, most alive parts of myself paved over by a ruthless logic of use. When I worry about the birds, I am also worrying about watching all my possible selves go extinct. And when I worry that no one will see the value of these murky waters, it is also a worry that I will be stripped of my own unusable parts, my own mysteries, and my own depths.”
“A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act like dams that capitalize on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking and frustrating our most innate desires, and profiting from them. Solitude, observation, and simple conviviality should be recognized not only as ends in and of themselves, but inalienable rights belonging to anyone lucky enough to be alive. … I want to trace a series of movements: 1) a dropping out, not dissimilar from the “dropping out” of the 1960s; 2) a lateral movement outward to things and people that are around us; and 3) a movement downward into place. Unless we are vigilant, the current design of much of our technology will block us every step of the way, deliberately creating false targets for self-reflection, curiosity, and a desire to belong to a community.”
“I am opposed to the way that corporate platforms buy and sell our attention, as well as to designs and uses of technology that enshrine a narrow definition of productivity and ignore the local, the carnal, and the poetic. I am concerned about the effects of current social media on expression—including the right not to express oneself—and its deliberately addictive features. But the villain here is not necessarily the Internet, or even the idea of social media; it is the invasive logic of commercial social media and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction. It is furthermore the cult of individually and personal branding that have grown out of such platforms and affect the way we think about our offline selves and the places where we actually live.”
Placefulness, The More-than-human World, Modes of Attention, Interspecies Thinking
"I'm sorry," Bix interrupted, thinking he'd misheard. "You're doing what?"
"We can upload an animal's perceptions," Kacia said. "Using brain sensors. For example, I can capture a portion of a cat's consciousness and then view it with a headset exactly as if I am the cat. Ultimately, this will help us to learn how different animals perceive and what they remember— basically, how they think."
Bix tingled with sudden alertness.
"The technology is still very crude," Kacia said. "But already, there is controversy: Are we crossing a line by breaching the mind of another sentient creature? Are we opening a Pandora's box?"
"We're back to the problem of free will," Eamon said. "If God is omnipotent, does that make us puppets? And if we are puppets, are we better off knowing that or not?"
"To hell with God," Fern said. "I'm worried about the Internet.'
"By which you mean an all-seeing, all-knowing entity that may be predicting and controlling your behavior, even when you think you're choosing for yourself?"
Affordances of Digital Technology, Surveillance Capitalism